Connecticut Capital Hartford Downgraded To Junk By S&P

One week ago, Illinois passed its three year-overdue budget in hopes of avoiding a downgrade to junk status, however in an unexpected twist, Moody's said that it may still downgrade the near-insolvent state, regardless of the so-called budget "deal." In fact, a downgrade of Illinois may come at any moment, making it the first U.S. state whose bond ratings tip into junk, although as of yesterday, credit rating agencies said they were still reviewing the state's newly enacted budget and tax package. The most likely outcome is, unfortunately for Illinois, adverse: "I think Moody's has been pretty clear that they view the state's political dysfunction combined with continued unaddressed long-term liabilities, and unfavorable baseline revenue performance as casting some degree of skepticism on the state's ability to manage out of the very fragile financial situation they are in," said John Humphrey, co-head of credit research at Gurtin Municipal Bond Management.

And yet, while Illinois squirms in the agony of the unknown, another municipality that as recently as a month ago was rumored to be looking at a bankruptcy filing, the state capital of Connecticut, Hartford, no longer has to dread the unknown: on Tuesday afternoon, S&P pulled off the band-aid, and downgraded the city's bond rating by two notches to BB from BBB-, also known as junk, citing "growing liquidity pressures" and "weaker market access prospects", while keeping the city's General Obligation bonds on Creditwatch negative meaning more downgrades are likely imminent.

"The downgrade to 'BB' reflects our opinion of very weak diminished liquidity, including uncertain access to external liquidity and very weak management conditions as multiple city officials have publicly indicated they are actively considering bankruptcy," said S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Victor Medeiros. Hartford has engaged an outside law firm with expertise in financial restructuring. Officials also mentioned that the city would initiate discussions with bondholders for concessions to implement a debt restructuring if it didn't receive the necessary support in the state's 2019 biennial budget.

S&P also said that Hartford may be downgraded again if the state passage of a budget is significantly delayed, or if the city were not to receive sufficient support in a timely manner that would enable it to manage liquidity and allow it to meet obligations in a timely manner.

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"... A Recession Has Always Followed": Is This The Real Reason The Fed Is Suddenly Panicking

"Why is the Fed so desperate to raise rates and tighten financial conditions? Why has the Fed shifted from a dovish to a hawkish bias?"

That is the question on every trader's, analyst's and economist's mind in the past month. Is it because the Fed is suddenly worried it has inflated another massive equity bubble (major banks now openly warn their clients the market is in frothy territory, if not inside a bubble), or is the Fed just worried that it will fall too far behind the curve and be unable to regain control of the economy once inflation spikes, without creating a recession (in what will soon be the second longest, if weakest, economic expansion of all time).

This is also what BofA's chief economist Ethan Harris tried to answer over the weekend, when he recalled that while from 2013 to 2016 the Fed seemed to have a "dovish bias" signaling a slow exit from super easy monetary policy, but pausing at any sign of trouble, this year the Fed appears to have shifted to a "hawkish bias:" signaling a slow exit, but only pausing if the outlook changes significantly. He says that this was most evident when the Fed hiked rates and signaled balance shrinkage at its June meeting despite weak growth and inflation data.

Why the change of Fed feathers? In BofA's view, three factors are at play, in increasing order of importance.

First, the Fed is worried a bit about financial stability and overheating markets. However, the bank puts a relatively low weight on this argument, as Chair Yellen and her allies have repeatedly underscored the idea that macro prudential policy is the first line of defense against asset bubbles and monetary policy is a distant "Plan B", although to this we can add that macroprudential policy has yet to demonstrate its effectiveness in preventing even one asset bubble.

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38 Incredible Facts About The Modern U.S. Dollar

We’ve previously showed you 31 Fascinating Facts About the Dollar’s Early History, which highlighted the history of U.S. currency before the 20th century. This was a very interesting period in which we looked at the money used by the first colonists, the extreme bust of the Continental currency, the era of privately-issued bank notes, and Congress’ emergency issuance of the fiat “greenback” during the Civil War.

However, as The Money Project - an ongoing collaboration between Visual Capitalist and Texas Precious Metals that seeks to use intuitive visualizations to explore the origins, nature, and use of money - notes, the modern era of the U.S. dollar is just as interesting. We have it starting in 1913, when the Federal Reserve Act was passed by Woodrow Wilson. Not only did it establish a new central bank, but it also gave the Fed the authority to issue the Federal Reserve Note, which is (for now) the dominant form of U.S. currency both domestically and abroad.

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Panicked BOJ Unleashes Bond Buying Bazooka: Offers To Buy Unlimited 10Y JGBs At 0.11%

During this morning's bond rout when a poor French auction sparked a high-volume selloff in German Bunds which also hit Japanese JGBs before slamming US TSYs, Goldman said that "with 10Y JGBs closing at 0.095 and getting hit at 10bp intraday, focus will be on how the BOJ will react tomorrow [i.e. now]. Opinions seem pretty split with some expecting an increase in purchase size in the 5-10 bucket, while others feel that the BOJ will let the 10Y run loose given the current sell off is more fundamental than event driven. With BOJ behind buying pace for 80tn reference anyway, personally I feel it doesn't hurt the BOJ to remind market of their presence."

Goldman was right: the BOJ, panicking after the overnight bond rout, not only reminded markets of its presence, but did so in dramatic fashion when it first boosted the amount of JGBs bought in the 5-10 year bucket from JPY 450BN to JPY 500 BN, and then for good measure unleashed the QQEWYC bazooka, announcing it would purchase an unlimited amount of 10Y JGBs at 0.11%, just a fraction above the BOJ's 0.10% line in the sand, only the second time it has done so in 2017 since February.

In immediate reaction, the benchmark Japanese TSY, which was trading north of 0.105% and flirting with 0.11%, promptly slid back to 0.095% now that it has become clear that all the hawkish posturing by central banks was just that.

Japanese market were relieved with the Topix paring losses to 0.3%, or 1,611.52 as of 10:23am in Tokyo, down from a drop as big as 0.7%, same as the Nikkei, which had dropped 0.7% earlier, then trimming losses by more than half, while the Yen, after trading at 113.250, immediately weakened by 25 pips to 113.50.

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The Fed Has An Alarming Low-Inflation Problem

With all the talk of central bank hawkishness in the last week, one might assume there was some inflation to point to. It is quite the opposite. It is one thing to talk about inflation being below the Fed’s target of 2%, it is an entirely different issue to see it flirting with deflation! Shorter-term trends of core-inflation are very near to 0%, levels we haven’t seen since the great recession and the advent of quantitative easing.

In its most common form, inflation is quoted by measuring its percentage change compared its level 12 months ago, the so-called year-over-year (YoY%) metric. But, shorter-term periods can be measured to get a sense of more recent trends as well as if there is acceleration or deceleration in the metric. The shorter the period measured, the more volatility the metric has, and so year-over-year (YoY%) has become the standard. It also has the added benefit of eliminating any seasonal effects.

In the charts below, we show the two top-tier measures of consumer price inflation, the Fed-preferred core PCE deflator, and the core CPI; with its common year-over year (YoY%) format, 6 months back annualized, and 3 months back annualized. Comparing the three gives a sense of acceleration of deceleration. If the 3mo. is less than the 6mo. is less than the 12mo., there is deceleration and vice-versa, there is acceleration.

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Chinese Manufacturers Are Scrambling To Replace Workers With Robots As Wages Soar

Tepid wage growth has been frustrating Americans for years. But if trends in China’s manufacturing sector have any bearing on the US, there’s an upside to stagnant pay: Workers get to keep their jobs – for now, at least.

In China – where real wages have doubled in the past decade – the opposite is true: Manufacturers, squeezed by rising labor costs and a paucity of skilled workers, are fueling an unprecedented boon in the adoption of automated technologies to cut down on the number of workers needed on factory floors, according to the latest findings of the China Employer-Employee Survey.

Ironically, the Communist Party’s willingness to support unprofitable businesses is compounding problems for Chinese workers, as many manufacturers are barely profitable to begin with.

As Bloomberg explains, China is no longer the cheap labor haven it once was.

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Nasdaq Triggers Market-Wide Circuit-Breaker As AMZN "Crashes" 87% After-Hours

Nasdaq has issued a market-wide trading halt amid what appears to be a "glitch" that sent a number of the largest Nasdaq-listed stocks to crash or spike to exactly $123.47 per share.

This move crashed the value of companies including Amazon and Apple, sparked chaos in Microsoft, while sending Zynga rocketing up more than 3000%.

As Bloomberg reports, the apparent swings triggered trading halts in some securities, according to automatically generated messages. The halts are a mechanism exchanges use to limit the impact of particularly volatile sessions. A system status alert on Nasdaq’s website said that systems were operating normally at 8:23 p.m. ET. After-market hours on Nasdaq typically last from 4 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

In a statement, Nasdaq said the glitch was related to “improper use of test data” sent out to third party data providers, and said it was working to “ensure a prompt resolution of this matter”. In cases of any clearly erroneous data, trades made are cancelled.

As a reminder this is not the first time 'glitches' have occurred on holidays... remember gold on Thanksgiving 2014.

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India: Cash Is Back (But The Crisis Has Deepened)

Cash is Back

I know many wealthy and so-called educated people who have never used a bank card. Many simply won’t trust a machine. Most are incapable of learning how to use the cards. With people tired of corrupt, untrustworthy and unpredictable banks and payment portals incapable of providing reliable services, cash is coming back with a vengeance.

The economy, however, continues to be stagnant. Businesses continue to fail. If not for economic reasons, businessmen have grown tired of corrupt and rapacious bureaucrats and an extremely uncertain regulatory regime. Look at an Indian businessman and you will see an unhealthy, tired, soulless person.

Even today, vegetables sell for half as much as they normally do. Are poor people going hungry? Do not expect news on this in the media, which must toe the line of the Indian government.

Money — even in fiat currency form — is the blood of the system. Once the blood flow was stopped, even if it is fully revived later, clots will have appeared and organs will have failed. That is happening in India today. Job growth was already stagnant, but the situation is much worse now, making India’s so-called demographic asset, which never was an asset, a massive liability.

Domino effects continue to work their way up the food chain. Formal and big businesses are beginning to show signs of stagnation. Members of the salaried middle class are losing their jobs, but they have so far failed to connect the dots and continue to support Modi.

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The World Is Now $217,000,000,000,000 In Debt And The Global Elite Like It That Way

The borrower is the servant of the lender, and through the mechanism of government debt virtually the entire planet has become the servants of the global money changers.  Politicians love to borrow money, but over time government debt slowly but surely impoverishes a nation.  As the elite get governments around the globe in increasing amounts of debt, those governments must raise taxes in order to keep servicing those debts.  In the end, it is all about taking money from us and transferring it into government pockets, and then taking money from government pockets and transferring it into the hands of the elite.  It is a game that has been going on for generations, and it is time for humanity to say that enough is enough.

According to the Institute of International Finance, global debt has now reached a new all-time record high of 217 trillion dollars…

Global debt levels have surged to a record $217 trillion in the first quarter of the year. This is 327 percent of the world’s annual economic output (GDP), reports the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

The surging debt was driven by emerging economies, which have increased borrowing by $3 trillion to $56 trillion. This amounts to 218 percent of their combined economic output, five percentage points greater year on year.

Never before in human history has our world been so saturated with debt.

And what all of this debt does is that it funnels wealth to the very top of the global wealth pyramid.  In other words, it makes global wealth inequality far worse because this system is designed to make the rich even richer and the poor even poorer.

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Janet Yellen Says A New Financial Crisis Probably Won’t Happen ‘In Our Lifetimes’ But The BIS Says One Could Soon Hit ‘With A Vengeance’

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is quite convinced that the United States will not experience another financial crisis for a very long time to come.  In fact, she is publicly saying that she does not believe that another one will happen “in our lifetimes”.  But there are other central bankers that see things very differently.  In fact, a new report that was just released by the Bank for International Settlements is warning that a new financial crisis could soon strike “with a vengeance”.  So who is right?

It would be nice if it turned out that Yellen was right.  Nobody should want to see a repeat of what happened in 2008, and Yellen seems extremely confident that she will never see another crisis of that magnitude…

“Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis? You know probably that would be going too far but I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be,” Yellen said at an event in London.

Even though the U.S. national debt has roughly doubled since the start of the last financial crisis, and even though corporate debt has roughly doubled since then as well, and even though U.S. consumers are more than 12 trillion dollars in debt, and even though the top 25 U.S. banks have 222 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives, Yellen believes that our financial system “is much safer and much sounder” than it was in 2008…

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The End Of The (Petro)Dollar: What The Fed Doesn't Want You To Know

The United States’ ability to maintain its influence over the rest of the world has been slowly diminishing. Since the petrodollar was established in 1971, U.S. currency has monopolized international trade through oil deals with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and continuous military interventions. There is, however, growing opposition to the American standard, and it gained more support recently when several Gulf states suddenly blockaded Qatar, which they accused of funding terrorism.

Despite the mainstream narrative, there are several other reasons why Qatar is in the crosshairs. Over the past two years, it conducted over $86 billion worth of transactions in Chinese yuan and has signed other agreements with China that encourage further economic cooperation. Qatar also shares the world’s largest natural gas field with Iran, giving the two countries significant regional influence to expand their own trade deals.

Meanwhile, uncontrollable debt and political divisions in the United States are clear signs of vulnerability. The Chinese and Russians proactively set up alternative financial systems for countries looking to distance themselves from the Federal Reserve.  After the IMF accepted the yuan into its basket of reserve currencies in October of last year, investors and economists finally started to pay attention. The economic power held by the Federal Reserve has been key in financing the American empire, but geopolitical changes are happening fast. The United States’ reputation has been tarnished by decades of undeclared wars, mass surveillance, and catastrophic foreign policy.

One of America’s best remaining assets is its military strength, but it’s useless without a strong economy to fund it. Rival coalitions like the BRICS nations aren’t challenging the established order head on and are instead opting to undermine its financial support. Qatar is just the latest country to take steps to bypass the U.S. dollar. Russia made headlines in 2016 when they started accepting payments in yuan and took over as China’s largest oil partner, stealing a huge market share from Saudi Arabia in the process. Iran also dropped the dollar earlier this year in response to President Trump’s travel ban. As the tide continues to turn against the petrodollar, eventually even our allies will start to question what best serves their own interests.

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Italy's Newest Bank Bailout Cost As Much As Its Annual Defense Budget

The Italian Prime Minister himself stated that depositors’ funds were at risk, so the government stepped in with a bailout and guarantee package that could cost taxpayers as much as 17 billion euros.

That’s a lot of money in Italy - around 1% of GDP. In fact it’s basically as much as the 17.1 billion euros they spent on national defense last year (according to an estimate by Italian think tank IAI).

You don’t have to have a PhD in economics to figure out that NO government can afford to spend its entire defense budget every time a couple of medium-sized banks need a bailout.

That goes especially for Italy, whose public debt level is already 132% of GDP… and rising. They simply don’t have the money.

Moreover, the European Union actually has a series of new rules collectively known as the “Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive” which is supposed to prevent failing banks from being bailed out with taxpayer funds.

Here’s the thing– Italy has LOTS of banks that are on the ropes.

So with taxpayer resources exhausted (and technically prohibited), who’s going to be on the hook next time a bank goes under?

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"It’ll Be An Avalanche": Hedge Fund CIO Sets The Day When The Next Crash Begins

While most asset managers have been growing increasingly skeptical and gloomy in recent weeks (despite a few ideological contrarian holdouts), joining the rising chorus of bank analysts including those of Citi, JPM, BofA and Goldman all urging clients to "go to cash", none have dared to commit the cardinal sin of actually predicting when the next crash will take place.

On Sunday a prominent hedge fund manager, One River Asset Management's CIO Eric Peters broke with that tradition and dared to "pin a tail on the donkey" of when the next market crash - one which he agrees with us will be driven by a collapse in the global credit impulse - will take place. His prediction: Valentine's Day 2018.

Here is what Peters believes will happen over the next 8 months, a period which will begin with an increasingly tighter Fed and conclude with a market avalanche:

“The Fed hikes rates to lean against inflation,” said the CIO. “And they’ll reduce the balance sheet to dampen growing financial instability,” he continued. “They’ll signal less about rates and focus on balance sheet reduction in Sep.”

Inflation is softening as the gap between the real economy and financial asset prices is widening. “If they break the economy with rate hikes, everyone will blame the Fed.” They can’t afford that political risk.

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Moody's: Modest Downside Could Spark $3 Trillion Surge In Pension Liabilities

Some very simplistic math from Moody's helps to shed some light on just how inevitable a public pension crisis is in the United States.  Analyzing a basket of 56 public plans with net liabilities of $778 billion, Moody's found that just a modest downside return scenario over the next three years (2017: +7.2%, 2018: -5.0%, 2019: 0%) would result in a 59% surge in new unfunded liabilities.  Moreover, given that total unfunded public pension liabilities are roughly $5 trillion in aggregate, this implies that a simple 5% drop in assets in 2018 could trigger a devastating ~$3 trillion increase in net liabilities.

Meanwhile, Moody's found that even if the funds return 19% over the next three years then net liabilities would still increase by 15%.  Per Pensions & Investments:

In its report, Moody's ran a sample of 56 plans with $778 billion in aggregate reported net pension liabilities through three different investment return scenarios. Due to reporting lags, most 2019 pension results appear in governments' 2020 financial reporting, Moody's noted. The plans had $1.977 trillion in trillion assets.

Under the first scenario with a cumulative investment return of 25% for 2017-'19, aggregate net pension liabilities for the 56 plans fell by just 1%. Under the second scenario with a cumulative investment return of 19% for 2017-2019, net pension liabilities rose by 15%. Under the third scenario with a 7.2% return in 2017, -5% return in 2018 and zero return in 2019, net pension liabilities rose by 59%.

In 2016, the 56 plans returned roughly 1% on average and would have needed collective returns of 10.7% to prevent reported net pension liabilities from growing.

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Owning Gold Is The First Step To "Freedom Insurance"

It’s predictable…

A government in need of cash will turn to destructive “solutions.”

Money printing, higher taxes, and more regulations often come first. Unfortunately, these are just the hors d’oeuvres before a 10-course meal.

As they become increasingly desperate, governments implement increasingly destructive policies. This might include capital controls, price controls, people controls, official currency devaluations, wealth confiscations, retirement account nationalizations, and more.

The same pattern has played out again and again around the world and throughout history. The worse a government’s fiscal health gets, the more destructive its policies become.

This is the root of political risk.

It’s no secret that political risk is snowballing in many parts of the world. This is especially true in the US and Europe, where welfare and warfare spending continues unabated. It doesn’t matter which party is in power.

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